1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a broadcast receiving apparatus and broadcast receiving system, connected to a recorder remote-controllable by a remote commander to record audio and video signals to a recording medium and which receive audio and video signals sent from a broadcasting satellite or communications satellite and operate the recorder by remote control. The present invention also relates to a method of selecting a control signal for the broadcast receiving system.
This application claims the priority of the Japanese Patent Application Nos. 2003-165518 filed on Jun. 10, 2003 and 2004-146916 filed on May 17, 2004, the entireties of which are incorporated by reference herein.
2. Description of the Related Art
To record broadcast programs, there are already available video recording apparatuses such as video tape recorders. Generally, the recorder has a preprogrammed recording feature enabled by a tuner and timer built in the recorder itself and with which the user can record a desired program by setting a time and channel for the program.
However, each of the common recorders has only a VHF (very high frequency) and UHF (ultra-high frequency) tuner built therein and thus cannot receive directly any BS (broadcasting satellite) broadcast and CS (communications satellite) broadcast. Therefore, to receive such BS and CS broadcasts, the recorder is used with a receiver called “set-top box” (will be referred to as “STB” hereunder) capable of receiving BS/CS broadcast programs. The STB outputs a video signal corresponding to a received broadcast program to the video input terminal of the recorder which will thus be able to record a BS/SC broadcast program.
In case such an STB is used with the common recorder to record a BS/CS broadcast program, there will not take place any problem as long as the user manually tunes the STB channel to a desired program and starts recording of the program by the recorder simultaneously with the start of broadcasting the program. However, a problem will occur in recording a BS/CS broadcast program with the use of the preprogrammed recording feature of the recorder. For example, since the recorder itself cannot usually control directly the BS/CS tuner built in the STB, it cannot continuously record BS/CS broadcast programs on different channels or in different time slots with the use of the preprogrammed recording feature in the recorder.
Generally, the recorder is provided with a remote control feature to operate the recorder itself by remote control, and a remote control signal transmitter called “AV mouse” is available which can transmit a similar signal to a remote control signal sent from a remote commander accessory to the recorder. For controlling the operation of the recorder to record BS/CS broadcast programs on different channels or in different time slots, for example, with the use of the preprogrammed recording feature of the recorder, it has been proposed to connect the remote control signal transmitter (AV mouse) being connected to the STB for sending a remote control signal from the STB side to the recorder. More particularly, the electronic program guide (EPG) can be used to record BS/CS broadcast program as preprogrammed without designating any program broadcasting time and channel (cf. Japanese Published Unexamined Patent Application No. 2001-223953, for example).
To use such a remote control signal transmitter, a group of control signal codes for remote control signals used in each of commercially available recorders and different from one to another of the manufacturers or models of the recorders is stored in a storage means built in the STB, and the user designates a group of control signal codes sent from the remote control signal transmitter while making a reference to a check list specifying a correspondence between the manufacturer of his or her recorder and the group of remote control signal codes used in the recorder.
However, the remote group of control signal codes used in the recorder is different from one to another of the recorder manufacturers as shown in FIG. 1. Also, a plurality of groups of control signal codes is registered in each of recorders made by one manufacturer in many cases. For example, a video tape recorder manufacturer A uses six groups of control signal codes in the video tape recorder as shown in FIG. 1. In this case, to operate the remote control signal transmitter, the user of the video tape recorder has to find, by try and error, a group of control signal codes used in the recorder to be controlled. However, this finding cannot be attained so easily.
Also, in case the manufacturer of a recorder adopts a new group of control signal codes in the recorder, the remote control signal transmitter will not possibly be used.
Note that to deal with a new group of control signal codes, a remote commander has been proposed which can add a new group of control signal codes to a user's recorder with the use of an external-device controlling transmitter/receiver having a learning mode of operation (cf. Japanese Published Unexamined Patent Application No. 1998-207509, for example). The remote commander disclosed in the Japanese Published Unexamined Patent Application No. 1998-207509 can add a new group of control signal codes to a user's recorder. With this remote commander, however, the user has to set, by try and error, a group of control signal codes to be used actually, which setting is also very troublesome.